Like Mother, Like
by AnyankaCEJ
Summary: Kay and Grace discover they have more in common than either could have dreamed.
1. Default Chapter

Title:  Like Mother, Like…

Disclaimers: _Passions_ does not belong to me, these are not my characters, yada yada yada.

Rating: Probably PG-13, so we'll go with that.

Storyline Setting: I started this story the week of 8/4-8/8, so it branches off roughly from there, with the exception being that Charity did not have to promise to stay away from Miguel in order to save the baby.  Importantly, the most recent conversations between Kay and Tabitha did _not _take place.

A/N: Although this story, to the best of my knowledge, does fit into the backstory that we've seen on the show, with minor stretches, it does directly contradict what we learn in _Hidden Passions.  However, since the show itself seems to have no problem ignoring the continuity of its much-touted book, particularly in the case of Eve's past, I don't see why I should be compelled to stick to it._

A/N 2: For any readers of my other, major story _Changes, who might be reading this, I'd just like to say that no, I have not abandoned it.  At some point, though I cannot guarantee when, it will be finished.  Thanks for your patience.  Now, on with this story…_

Kay smiled serenely as she looked into her daughter's gorgeous blue eyes, so like her own, and yet possessing an innocence that she herself would never be able to lay claim to again.

"Really now, Kay," Tabitha clucked disapprovingly, disrupting Kay's reverie.  The two of them were seated at Tabitha's kitchen table, each holding their respective offspring.  "You don't have to watch her like a hawk 24/7.  The girl's not going to vanish into thin air the second you take your eyes off of her."

"I realize that, Tabitha, but sometimes I don't really believe it.  After all, it's a miracle that Maria isn't…," and Kay's voice trailed off.  Even two months after that awful night, she couldn't bring herself to say it, as a small, childish part of her still believed that speaking the thing you feared most could really make it happen.  Of course, in Harmony, she reflected, such a possibility wasn't really all that far off-base.

"That's alright, you don't have to say it," the witch replied softly, once again feeling an unwelcome surge of sympathy for the girl.  _Really now, Tabitha Lennox, she thought crossly to herself, __it won't do to go and get soft on the brat now.  Who knows what trouble you could get yourself into, and you've got your own child to think about._

Tabitha's baby chose that moment to give a loud burp, thereby causing a jet of green fire to travel across the room and scorch the kitchen floor tile, and witch and erstwhile apprentice to jump, startled, out of their chairs.  "Geez, Tabitha!" Kay shrieked, "isn't there any way to stop her doing that?  My daughter could've easily been caught in the way of that and gotten burnt to a crisp!"

"I'm sorry Kay, but you know as well as I do how unpredictable babies can be."

Kay was about to reply cattily that at least _her child hasn't tried to kill anybody yet, but thought better of it and checked her tongue at the last second.  After all, Tabitha was being really nice to her, and she and Maria didn't have anywhere else to go, as much as she wanted to get her baby safely away from Tabitha's hellspawn._

Instead, Kay distractedly got out of her chair and wandered over to the window, where she looked on longingly at her old house.  "I wonder what's going on over there," she murmured softly.

"You could always go and find out for yourself," the (much) older woman offered pointedly, sick of Kay's increasingly chronic tendency to sit around and speculate about the goings on at her old home.

Kay laughed sharply, and a little of her old viciousness crept back into her demeanor.  "Yeah, right.  Because being in the same house with Charity, a sister who was so worried about my baby that she went out and found "a great new career opportunity" while my daughter was dying, and a mother who can't stand to look at me sounds like so much fun.  She hates me, Tabitha, and she has ever since I started to pose a threat to her precious Charity.  I bet Mom was just like her, too, a little ray of saintly sunshine, and that's why she can't stand me."

Rising to join Kay, Tabitha stifled a small giggle.  "I wouldn't be too sure of that," she intoned in a slightly singsong voice.

The teen glanced over at her mentor, her eyes betraying a genuine curiosity.  "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing," the witch said hastily.  "Nothing at all.  Anyways, we've got more important things to discuss right now than Grace Bennett.  You haven't been studying the Craft lately, which is fine for now, since you've been on a maternity leave of sorts.  But I'm afraid our Friends in the Basement are starting to get impatient for you to get back to work on your apprenticeship, and the sooner the better."

Startled, Kay backed away quickly, eyeing her sort-of friend as if she had just tried to do her bodily harm.  "Oh, no, Tabitha, I know I ended up not confessing everything at the hospital, but that was just because I got angry at everyone fawning over Charity, as usual.  I'm not going to mess with any of that…stuff ever again," she insisted with a shiver.

Tabitha blinked incredulously.  "But, don't you _want to get Miguel away from Charity?" _

"Let's put it this way: if he showed up right now with a ring, I wouldn't say no, but I've finally accepted that it's just not going to happen.  He's made it clear over and over that he still wants to be with Charity, and there's just nothing else I can do.  And you know what?" Kay asked, smiling almost blissfully as she cradled her daughter, "I'm not nearly as devastated about it as I thought I'd be.  I guess he's not the most important person in my life anymore.  Besides, I want to set a good example for Maria, so no more messing with the dark forces for me."

Tabitha sighed resignedly.  "I'm afraid it's really not that easy, child."

"Of course it is," Kay asserted defensively, though she was starting to act visibly nervous.  "I'm quitting, and that's all there is to it."

Tabitha couldn't quite believe what she was hearing; for such a bright girl, Kay really could be incredibly dense sometimes.  It must be her father's influence.  "You made a pact with the forces of Evil, and that's with a capital 'E'!  You can't just say you're quitting, pick up your marbles, and go home!  You've signed a contract, and you'd better not break it—or else."  
"Or else what?  What'll they do, kill me?"

"No, my best guess is that first they'll kill your baby, slowly, while you're forced to watch, and then they'll kill you," Tabitha replied matter-of-factly.

Gasping in horror, Kay instinctively drew an oblivious Maria in closer to her.  "A-are you threatening us, Tabitha?"

Tabitha's face softened, and she looked at her young charge with a great deal of pity, duly mixed with empathy.  She still remembered all too well what it was like to fear for the life of someone she loved more than life itself, the one person she'd been willing to defy her bosses for.  "No, Kay, I'm not threatening you.  I'm warning you.  If you don't do everything I say, both of your lives will be worth less than nothing.  Now, knowing that, you can listen to me, or you can try your luck with them.  It's your choice."

Knowing she'd been soundly defeated, Kay hung her head in resignation.  "Alright, fine, what do you want me to do?"

Tabitha smiled, and tried her best to sound upbeat.  "Good, I'm glad to see that you're finally talking sensibly.  Why don't you look in the _Spells of Pain_ book until you find a potion for puss-filled boils on the feet.  It'll be good practice for you: it's not difficult to brew, and you can try it on whomever you like—other than me, of course.  I'll be out for a walk with Endora, but I should be back in time to help you test it."

*****

Kay cursed under her breath as she sat on the living room couch, book in hand and Maria sleeping peacefully in her cradle.  Her mind only partially on her task while her eyes listlessly skimmed the pages, she contemplated her predicament.

Well, she was really, truly trapped now.  God, she'd been stupid, thinking she could dabble in whatever she wanted and then just walk away whenever she'd had enough.  If only there was some way she could just snap her fingers and make it like none of this ever happened, but she guessed like it was finally time to give up such childish fantasies.  Kay figured she must be truly damned to Hell now.  Well, she could face that fate on her own account; she'd casually resigned herself to it often enough in the past.  It was her daughter that she was worried about: she couldn't let her grow up around such evil influences, and yet she couldn't bring herself to face the prospect of giving up the only bright spot left in her life.  _I really am horrible, she thought bitterly.  __I can't give this racket up, and I can't even send my daughter far away from it.  Maybe my mother is right about despising me.  She never would have let herself get mixed up in anything like this._

As she continued leafing fruitlessly through the ancient pages, Kay began to hope that she wouldn't be able to find the desired spell.  She was getting sick of causing pain to everybody around her, and was finding it to be decidedly unsatisfactory (though she still had to guiltily stifle a giggle as she imagined Charity hopping up and down frantically as her simpering little face twisted itself into a mask of comical anguish).

Just as she was about to give up, Kay happened upon a passage which managed to perk her interest in spite of herself.  Under the chapter entitled _Memory Charms were a very interesting pair of spells.  The first was located underneath the heading _Incantation for the Restoration of a Memory Lost_.  "Interesting!" Kay exclaimed, though softly so as not to wake the baby, "All these amnesiacs wandering around town and Tabitha's got the cure right here.  It's kinda funny, actually."  Making a mental note, as such a spell would inevitably prove to be useful at some point around these parts, Kay continued reading._

The second proved to be even more intriguing.  Called (rather lamely, in Kay's opinion) _A Charm For Gaining Entry Into Another's Mind, it provided access into a person's memory, not as they consciously remember it, faded and inaccurate, but as the past had actually happened.  _Now **that could turn out to be ****really interesting.  I could find out anything about anybody I wanted to!**_ Kay thought, appeasing her slightly guilty conscience with the rationalization that, if she had no choice about doing witchcraft, she might as well have some fun with it._

Eagerly, Kay read through the list of ingredients, and instructions.  Every item she'd need was readily available in Tabitha's supply, and the spell surprisingly enough didn't look especially difficult to perform.  She could try it this afternoon, as a matter of fact—all she had to do was to figure out whose memory she was going to essentially "hack" into.  Problem was, very few people she knew had any secrets, or if they did, she was positive that they wouldn't interest her in the least.  As she thought about it, though, one possibility gradually became more and more attractive.

Her mother.  Kay had to admit that she, like the rest of her family, had always been highly curious about Grace Bennett's life before the fire.  Now, she had the chance to actually find out!  Of course, it wasn't liked she cared about her mother anymore, so nothing she might find out would actually matter to her.  And yet, on the other hand, she might surprise herself and actually discover something interesting after all, maybe even something she'd be able to use to her advantage at some point in the future.  What's more, Kay didn't see why the charm couldn't be used on Grace: based on the book's description of the precise magical mechanics, the fact that she had amnesia shouldn't keep the spell from working.  

"I'll do it," Kay finally decided, and excitedly went back into the kitchen in order to perform the spell.

*****

After having assembled and applied all of the necessary herbs and potions and thrown them into the trainer cauldron that Tabitha had given her for her birthday, Kay was finally ready for the final ingredient: an item belonging to her mother.  Kay was stalled for a minute, as she really didn't want to try her luck sneaking into the house to find something, and didn't have any of her mother's belongings with her.  Just as she was starting to become frustrated, though, Kay had a sudden moment of inspiration, and took a peak into Tabitha's refrigerator.  Sure enough, on the bottom shelf sat a moldy old tomato soup cake that her mother must have sent over at least three months ago.  It was just like her mother, too: all these years and she couldn't remember (or, more probably, didn't care) that Kay had always hated the disgusting excuse for a dessert.

"Hmm, I wonder why Tabitha didn't just throw it away," Kay mused as she gingerly removed the cake from the fridge.  "Well, in case she needed it for something, too, I'll just cut off a slice and use that."

And so Kay did, and dropped the smallish slice into the cauldron, which then emitted pinkish sparks and fumes for a good two or three minutes.  

"Geez," Kay coughed and sputtered, "that junk's even more toxic than I thought."  After the potion had finally started to settle down, Kay stirred the concoction three and a half times counter-clockwise as she recited the given incantation, and demanded to be shown her mother as a teenager.  For a long second afterwards it seemed as though nothing had happened, when suddenly Kay's stomach gave a sickening lurch and the world collapsed.


	2. When I Was Your Age

Or, at least, it felt like the world collapsed, but Kay didn't have any time to lucidly assess the situation, because by the time she could actually think coherent thoughts again, she had found herself standing upright in a small, depressing cottage-type home whose decorating motif seemed to consist mainly of chickens, flags, and angel statues.  

The colors all around her were faded, muted, like the way they usually look in a flashback-to-the-distant-past scene in a movie.  Without even trying, Kay was absolutely certain that her hand would go right through anything she tried to touch or pick up.  Kay couldn't decide if she felt like she herself was a ghost, or if the entire world she currently inhabited had become ghostly and she was the only real thing in it.  Or, maybe there wasn't any difference between the two positions; perhaps that's what it feels like when you are a ghost.

At any rate Kay didn't have too much time with which to meditate on the finer points of metaphysics, because a girl who looked like a younger version of her mother (with a really, really stupid haircut) and carrying a battered old suitcase stormed into what seemed to be the main living space from a side room across from Kay, followed closely by another girl clearly identical to her, and another, older woman whom Kay realized with a peculiar shock must be the grandmother she never knew.

"Grace, dear," the woman pleaded, "you're not really serious about this."

"I have never been so serious about anything in my entire life, Mother," the girl referred to as Grace spat back with a level of venom that made Kay jump back a little.  "I just can't take it any more! Evil this, evil that, praying to ward off 'evil forces' all the time, we have no lives—you've never even allowed us to go to school with everybody else!"

"It was too dangerous, Grace, you know that," the woman maintained.  "The Standish women have always been a target for the forces of evil, and if they got to either of you out there, there wouldn't be enough goodness to ward them off.  But, Grace, this is your home, and—"

"Oh, why are you even pretending to care, Mother?" Grace demanded, cutting the older woman off.  "It's not like you give a damn what happens to me."  Kay was faintly amused, despite being in an extreme state of shock, to observe that both of the other women's jaws dropped in shock, obviously mortified that Grace would use the 'd' word.

"Now, Grace, you know perfectly well that's not true…"

Grace laughed bitterly.  "Oh, yeah?  Anybody could tell that you always loved perfect, saintly little Faith more!"

"I love both of you equally," the mother asserted weakly, while Faith started moaning miserably.  "It's all my fault," she muttered.  "If I wasn't here, you two wouldn't be having this fight."

Grace effortlessly achieved an expression of absolute disgust.  "Oh, just shut up, Faith, and cut out the poor little martyr routine.  You make me sick."

The elder Standish woman's expression shifted from kindly concern to harsh anger.  "You will **not speak to your sister that way, Grace, especially when she's so good, so thoughtful, so—"**

"So better than me," Grace finished.  "Yeah, not only is she an all-around better person, but her premonitions are stronger, too.  I know that.  But that's fine, I've finally stopped caring whether or not you love me.  I'm eighteen now, and I can do whatever I want.  And I want out of here!"

"Now, now, you're just upset, sit down and have a bite, and you'll feel all better soon," Grace's mother cooed soothingly, changing tactics.  "I baked a tomato soup cake," she added, as if she were offering her daughter an irresistible enticement to stay home.

Grace suddenly became absolutely livid, like she was only a breath away from exploding in a true, Carrie-like fashion.  "I don't.  Want.  A.  Stupid.  Tomato.  Soup.  Cake," she seethed.  "We _always have tomato soup cake, on birthdays, holidays, and most days in between, too.  Nobody else ever has this junk, they eat chocolate cake, or cherry pie, or doughnuts, or anything else.  Can't we for once in our freakish lives just live like _normal_ people?!  I hope to God that I never see another tomato soup cake as long as I live!"_

The others were too shocked for a moment to say anything, though eventually Faith quietly offered, "I like tomato soup cake."

Grace narrowed her eyes as she looked at her sister.  "You would," she replied with dismissive scorn, and started to turn to leave.

Faith got a faraway look in her eyes, tottered a bit, looked woozy, and grabbed her sister's arm frantically.  "Please, wait!" she pleaded, panic evident in her tone.  "I sense evil!  You can't leave now, Grace, or else it'll go after you!"

Unmoved, Grace fiercely tore her arm away from her sister's grasp.  "Oh, give me a break!  I'm tired of sitting around here, with no friends, and of being such a goody-goody.  I'm going to learn how to actually _use_ my powers so that I can take care of myself and maybe even have some fun once in a while.  Goodbye, and don't waste your time looking for me, because it won't do you any good: I'm not coming back."  

Clearly not intending to wait around for either of them to muster up another objection, Grace trounced out through the front door, slamming it noisily and leaving her sister and mother beside themselves with distress.

*****

As soon as Grace had made her exit, everything around Kay froze, as still and lifeless as if someone had pushed the "pause" button on a VCR, and the teen struggled furiously to process the information overload she'd just experienced.  Whatever it was that she had been expecting, it certainly hadn't been that.  No, Kay had always assumed that her mother had been a Charity as a girl, or, at the very worst, a Jessica, but this…

"No," she voiced out loud, perfectly aware that there was nobody around to hear her.  "This just isn't possible.  It's, like, breaking the natural laws of the universe!  _My mom being rude, sarcastic, sullen, and **not wanting tomato soup cake**…I could actually __relate to someone like that!  I've gotta be missing something."_

Try as she might, though, she couldn't deny what she had witnessed with her own eyes.  Apparently, this whole trip down memory lane was going to be a great deal more revealing than she'd thought possible.  Now more eager than ever to see what else she could discover about her mother, she shouted out, "Alright, then, let me see what happened to her next!"


	3. The Road Taken

Kay smiled triumphantly as the scenery around her began to change.  It was kinda neat, actually, almost like talking to the Computer in a Holodeck simulation…

_Whoa, back up a second there, Kay,_ she thought bemusedly.  _Where'd THAT thought come from?  Well, she'd always known that she had been forced to watch old _Next Generation_ reruns with Reese one too many times for the good of her own health and well-being._

Her surroundings presently solidified into a dingy, run-down bus depot which, Kay judged from various tourist posters advertising everything from the Mass. Museum of Fine Art to the _U.S.S. Constitution_ museum to Fanieul Hall and Quincy Market, could be located nowhere other than Boston.  Passengers were hurriedly filing off one of the buses, with a lost-looking Grace among them, whose new surroundings seemed to have deprived her of all of the snarling confidence she'd possessed at the cottage.  From the way she was being knocked back and forth as she tried to climb off by hurried travelers, Kay could tell that she was not at all used to being on her own amongst so many people.  Grace turned her head, almost meeting Kay's gaze, and the teen suddenly noticed dried tears staining young Grace's face.

Finally managing to get off of the bus, Grace drifted slightly out of the main line of traffic, and paused, as if trying to figure out what she was going to do next.  Before she had a chance to another step, though, her suitcase went flying out of her hands when a handsome young man of about twenty-five or so bumped into her.   

"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," he apologized in a sincere tone.  "Here, let me help you with that."  His dark brown hair, bright green eyes, and wide, open smile all came together for an honest, friendly appearance, and yet Kay felt an instant vague distrust of the guy.

Grace evidently didn't share her future daughter's apprehension, for she let him finish repacking her suitcase and hand it back to her with an easy flourish.  "Thank you," she started awkwardly, "Mr…?"

"You can just call me Sebastian," he smiled once again, even more brightly.  "And your name, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Grace Standish," she answered voluntarily.

For a brief second, Sebastian looked inexplicably pleased.  "Well, Grace, I am very sorry about bumping into you so rudely."

"Oh…don't mention it," she replied, looking down at her feet while absently brushing a rogue strand of hair back behind her left ear.

"No, really, I insist on making it up to you somehow.  I know, there's a diner right on the corner.  It's not great food, but it's convenient.  Would you like to join me for a bite to eat?"  He smiled again, which made Kay wince.  This guy was oozing so much oily gallantry that she half-expected him to slither away at any moment.

His demeanor didn't seem to bother her mother, though.  Grace agreed, and she (as well as Kay), followed Sebastian to the aforementioned diner, where the two of them traded the standard polite small talk for a seemingly endless length of time.  Just as Kay was starting to get really bored, though, Sebastian decided to up the ante.

He leaned in a bit, bringing his face just close enough to Grace's to create a feeling of intimacy without invading her personal space.  "So, Grace, you, your sister, and your mother have lived in a cottage in the woods outside of a small coastal town for as long as you can remember.  What made you decide to leave?"

Grace began to play with her food.  "It was a lot of things, a lot of problems that had been going on for a long time.  Mostly, though, I felt like nothing would ever happen to me if I stayed, that I was wasting not only my life, but something else."  She laughed nervously, as if she felt foolish saying any of these things out loud.  "I can't even describe it, and I'm sure I'm not making any sense."

Sebastian gently took a hold of her hand.  I think I know what you're talking about.  You felt like you were wasting your potential."

Grace thought about it for a minute.  "That's a strange way of putting it, but, yeah, that's exactly what it was.  For a long time, I've had the feeling that I could do so much more than I have been."

"And I'm sure you could," he replied with a bit too much of a glint in his eyes, and Kay was now convinced without a doubt that her suspicions were right, that he'd been playing along with the young, and despite her earlier bravado, still fairly naïve Grace Standish for some higher, sinister purpose.

"What do you mean?" Grace sounded confused, and more than a little uneasy.

"I could sense it from the moment I met you, Grace.  You have the Power."

Shocked by such a direct statement, Grace feigned ignorance.  "I-I don't know what you mean…"

"Oh, I think you do.  You've always had it, haven't you?  But you couldn't explore, or develop it, because your family said it was wrong.  So you were stuck, even though you always thought it ridiculous not to use what you'd been given.  Am I guessing right?"

Grace was astonished.  Kay wasn't.  "Yes!  Exactly, but how did you…?"

Sebastian stopped her questions with a shrug of his shoulders.  "It's a common story, especially with a family history like the one you told me about.  They were holding you back Grace, weren't they?"

"Yes," she admitted with an amazed expression on her face, as if incredulous that she was sharing feelings she'd never before voiced even to herself with someone she'd only just met.  "I mean, we all had premonitions and visions, and we also had other powers, but my mother always taught us not to use them, so all we ever could do was sense some impending doom, without ever being able to do anything about it, feeling totally helpless."

Sebastian's smile was gone now, and he looked deadly serious.  "You don't have to feel helpless, Grace, not ever again.  I can teach you how to use your gifts."

Grace narrowed her eyes in suspicion, though she couldn't hide her rather obvious interest in his proposition.  "Who are you, anyway?"

"Just someone else who's in touch with forces greater than ourselves," was the smooth reply.  "There's a whole bunch of us, we live not very far away from here.  Why don't you come, check it out?  I think you'll fit in very well."

Kay scoffed.  Okay, this was in no way suspenseful in the least.  Strange as her mom was acting, this was still her mom, who would still be much too self-righteous to ever take part in anything she even suspected was really Wrong, and this Sebastian guy was obviously involved somehow with the Dark Forces.  So confident was Kay that her mother would tell this scumbag to get lost that she was completely unable to do or say anything for several moments after Grace replied, "Yeah, I think I will," and left the diner with him.


	4. Beginnings

Kay felt as if the fabric of her entire world had been ripped to shreds, and everything she'd thought she'd known about her mother had been negated totally.  Horrified, and yet unwilling to stop after she'd already uncovered so much dirt, Kay kept demanding to find out what happened next.

From the subsequent scenes she witnessed, Kay got a pretty clear picture of how the next couple years of her mother's life went.  She was introduced to the group that Sebastian had spoken about, which resembled nothing more than covens of evil witches that Kay had seen in various schlocky B-movies, and continually taught more and more about her power, as she was gradually convinced to use darker and darker magicks, until eventually she came to revel in it and no longer needed to be coerced.  She rose to near the top of the pecking order in the coven, second only to Sebastian.  Kay's mother, it seemed, had just kept getting herself in deeper and deeper, with no end in sight.

At last, though, Kay was shown an episode in which a sobbing Grace and irritated Sebastian seemed to be engaged in a furious argument.  If Kay hadn't known better, she would never have recognized the woman before her as her mother: with her long auburn hair streaked with black, heavy, dark eye-liner and lipstick, and getup that made her look like some weird cross between some medieval witch, a punk rocker, and an extra in a Marilyn Manson video, she was easily light years away from the conservative, pious Casserole Queen that Kay and her siblings had grown up with.

"Look, Grace," Sebastian said angrily, grabbing a hold of her by her shoulders.  "I don't know what's gotten into you today.  Where's this change of heart coming from?  It's been ages since you've thrown a fit like this!"

"I know, Sebastian, but my mother and sister almost found me today!  They must've been wandering around looking for me this whole time.  I ended up having to use a glamour so that they wouldn't see me."

"Alright, so you had a close call.  It happens sometimes.  It's nothing to get all worked up about."

Grace shook her head furiously.  "It isn't just that.  At first, I tried hiding without using magic.  There was a church on the corner right where I was, so I tried ducking into there and…," Grace lowered her head, her cheeks burning red with shame under all of her punk/goth make-up.  "I couldn't," she said in a small voice.  "A whole army of angels came down and barred me from entering.  It just sort of hit me then how low I'd sunk, that God won't even allow me in one of His houses."

Sebastian tried to laugh it off.  "Well, it's a little too late to be thinking about that now, isn't it, Grace?  You're one of the most promising initiates that our side has had in a long time.  Why, the only step left before you become a full-fledged witch is the Pledge next week."

Grace drew herself up to her full height and winced, as if bracing herself for some inevitable blow.  "I'm not going to take it."

For a second, Kay thought that Sebastian was going to attack her, but he seemed to manage, with great difficulty, to control his temper.  "Now come on, it was a shock, I understand, I had a few of my own when I first started out.  But that's no reason to throw away the two years of hard work you went through to get to this point.  Our Friends Down Below are extremely pleased with the work you've done, Grace.  Why, nobody's better with a curse than you are, and your hexes…  They're thinking of giving you your own region of influence, right after the Pledge!  There's no telling how far you could go."  He pressed closer, suggestively tracing her lips with his right pointer finger.  "How far _we_ could go."

Grace closed her eyes and began to sigh, but eventually shook herself and pushed him away, an action for which Kay was profoundly grateful.  "That's not going to work anymore, Sebastian.  Not this time, and not ever again."

Sebastian laughed cruelly, not looking nearly so handsome anymore.  "And you really think it's that easy, that you can just walk away after everything you've been doing for the last _two years_?"

"I-I'll repent."

"And then you'll just be taken back because you said that you're sorry and you'll be able to rejoin the herds of the faithful like none of this ever happened.  Not likely.  And even if you can, what makes them think you'd be able to stand it?  You've tasted power, Grace; do you think you'll be able to live without it now?"

"Well, I can try," she responded, refusing to let her determination slip.  "This isn't real power, anyway.  We're nothing but slaves to those Friends you always keep talking about.  I didn't realize that when I got involved with you."

"You knew enough."

"You tricked me!"

Sebastian sneered.  "Oh, come on, you may have been naïve, but deep down you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into.  Deny it all you want, but you joined up simply because you wanted to, because you craved the power, the control; you wanted to prove that you were just as strong as that sister of yours, and you didn't care what price you had to pay to do it!"

Looking emotionlessly into his eyes, she replied, "Maybe you're right, but it's all over now.  I'm leaving right now and renouncing this.  It's the only shot I've got at forgiveness."

Dropping all pretenses, Sebastian lunged at her, murder clearly visible in his eyes, but Grace was prepared for him.  Muttering something under her breath, she watched unblinkingly as he slammed into thin air just inches away from her, sort of invisible force field evidently standing between them.  "You won't get away with this!" he ranted as she picked up that same battered old suitcase and headed out the door.  "Nobody just walks away from our side and lives!  We'll be coming after you so you'd better watch—" but he was cut off totally when a roll of masking tape appeared out of thin air and promptly taped his mouth shut.

On the edge of her seat, metaphorically speaking, Kay demanded to be shown what happened to Grace next, and what looked like a small apartment began to materialize.  Grace, out of her former get-up and wearing clothes of more or less the same style as the ones she'd left home in, her hair back to its natural color, sat forlornly on a couch in the center of the room, one of the few pieces of furniture that seemed to be in the apartment.  Grace looked as if—

"Kay!" Tabitha yelled crossly, ripping the girl forcefully out of her trance.  What on earth have you been up to?"

Kay blinked groggily at her mentor, too disoriented to respond.

"Well?" The witch demanded.  "I'm waiting for an explanation."

_Wow,_ Kay thought to herself as soon as the world around her started making sense again.  _How'd she get back so fast?_  "There was this spell…my mother…I feel sick," she provided feebly, staring up intently at Tabitha and nodding her head determinedly, as if that explained everything.

Tabitha rolled her eyes.  That's what happens when trainees with hardly any experience tackle spells they're simply not prepared for.  Well, Kay was certainly not going to be any help at the moment, so Tabitha shuffled over to the counter, bracelets jingling all the while, and skimmed the page that the book was turned to.  "Oh Kay, you didn't!" Tabitha groaned.  "You went into your mother's mind and accessed her memories!"

A light seemed to turn on in Kay's brain.  "I did do that!" she exclaimed, jumping up from the lotus position she had gotten into at some point over the course of the spell.  She wobbled back and forth for a moment, and then scrambled over next to Tabitha and grabbed onto the counter for support.  Her memory of all that she had witnessed now more or less restored, she looked purposefully at Tabitha.  "And let me tell you, Tabitha, I want some answers."

Tabitha flinched, even though she knew it was coming.  Her bosses were _not going to be happy to learn that Kay had found out anything about her mother's past.  "Very well, Kay, what do you want to know?"_

"Is it true?  Did she really work for the Dark Forces?"

Of course the brat was going to go and uncover that little nugget of information.  "Yes," Tabitha admitted.  "It was thought to be the coup of the century, in fact, getting a Standish to come over to the Dark Side."

"But she left, I saw that.  That Sebastian guy, he said they were gonna go after her.  Did they?"

"Of course, as I told you earlier, one can't just quit like she tried to do.  She would've been dispatched without any trouble, but that pesky Angel Girl warned her after she repented, and she fled to an old apartment building.  Our side tracked her down, though, and set fire to her apartment," Tabitha explained, tactfully omitting the extra little detail that she herself had set the fire, as it was at the moment very difficult for her to tell precisely how Kay, ever the loose cannon, was feeling about this revelation.

"The fire that my dad rescued her from!" Kay exclaimed, realization dawning.  "And then she had amnesia…did evil make her lose her memory?"

Tabitha had hoped that the conversation would not take this turn, but she saw no use lying; Kay had gotten to be quite good at telling when she was not being totally truthful with her.  Besides, she'd upset her bosses so many times in the past that she doubted very much that this incident would end up tipping the scales either way.  "No, her mind wipe came courtesy of the forces of Good."

"Why'd they do that?"

"You know, for some reason, they never did tell me," Tabitha replied sarcastically.  "If I had to guess, though, I'd say it was an act of mercy, not to have to live with the knowledge of everything she'd done, being given a chance to start fresh, with her sins washed away and all the rest of that "born again" tripe.  Of course, there was probably the double motive of security playing a role in that decision too."

Kay wasn't quite following.  "Security?"

"Well, Grace Standish had shown that she couldn't be trusted with her abilities, so they simply took away any and all knowledge of them.  Removes the temptation, wouldn't you say?"

"Uh, yeah," Kay replied, working out what Tabitha had just told her.  So, her mother had been at least as bad as she was, but, unlike herself, was given an easy, guilt-free out.  And now, she was using it to self-righteously attack Kay for every little thing she ever did!  The more she thought about it, the more incensed she became.  It seemed only fair that Grace Bennett be given a taste of her own medicine.  Suddenly blinded with anger, she resolved to see to it that her mother would soon wish that an extra husband was all that she had to deal with from her past!

Ignoring Tabitha's frenzied protests that in this case the pain and suffering just wasn't worth the possible consequences, Kay quickly memorized the incantation for memory restoration, picked her daughter up out of the cradle, and placed her gingerly into her stroller.

"Sit tight, Maria," Kay cooed pseudo-sweetly.  "We're gonna go visit Grandma!"


End file.
